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What the United States Knew About Salvadoran Human Rights Abuses

Thomas Blanton, of the National Security Archive, a group that declassifies government documents, using the Freedom of Information Act. Recently, they accessed documents indicating that the Reagan administration was aware of human rights abuses in El Salvador in the 1980s. During that time, the administration was required to report to Congress about conditions in El Salvador, with the understanding that if the Salvadorian military did not improve it's human rights record, the U.S. would no longer send aid. Last week, the U.N.'s Commission on the Truth issued implicating the Salvadorian military in the murders of Archbishop Romero, four American churchworkers, and six Jesuit priests.

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Other segments from the episode on March 24, 1993

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, March 24, 1993: Interview with John Darnton; Interview with Thomas Blanton; Review of Wynton Marsalis's album "Citi Movement."

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Wresting Secrets from the U.S. Government

The National Security Archive is a repository for intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Its contents include papers related to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Iran-Contra affair --and, more recently, to pre-9/11 warnings about Osama bin Laden. It is led by Tom Blanton.

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Tom Blanton and "The Kissinger Transcripts."

Tom Blanton is the Director of the National Security Archive, A research library at George Washington University in Washington D.C. His department, using the Freedom of Information Act, obtained the transcripts of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The now declassified papers detail Kissinger's secret negotiations with key world leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev, Andrei Gromyko, Mao Zedong, and Deng Xiaoping. The transcripts have been edited and published in the new book "The Kissinger Transcripts" (The New Press)

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Tom Blanton Discusses "White House E-Mail."

Tom Blanton is the editor of the book "White House E-Mail: The Top Secret Computer Messages The Reagan/Bush White House tried to Destroy." It is published by New Press. Blanton is the executive editor of the National Security Archive, a freedom of information advocacy group. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

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